BLOG: Tips for watching the NFL Draft

What is the best way to follow the NFL Draft?It’s a question that this SportsGuy asks himself every year, with the ultimate response to that query usually being inconclusive.

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By Kirt Manion/Nebraska City News-Press

Nebraska City News-Press - Nebraska City, NE

By Kirt Manion/Nebraska City News-Press

Posted Apr. 23, 2013 at 9:34 AM
Updated Apr 23, 2013 at 9:37 AM

By Kirt Manion/Nebraska City News-Press

Posted Apr 23, 2013 at 9:34 AM
Updated Apr 23, 2013 at 9:37 AM

What is the best way to follow the NFL Draft?

It’s a question that this SportsGuy asks himself every year, with the ultimate response to that query usually being inconclusive.

Navigating this pseudo football event in a way that captures maximum enjoyment and subtracts mindless boredom tends to be a perilous proposition.

Even for a football crazed fan of both the college and pro game, the draft seems to drag.

Prime time television hasn’t helped ease the problem, nor has the move to erase five minutes from the first round draft clock.

There was a time when teams took as much as 15 minutes to make a selection in the first round. Now that clock is down to 10 minutes.

But most teams drain the entire clock before making their pick, which means 320 minutes will pass before the first round is in the books on Thursday.

And there is only so much analyst talk that any fan can take.

Geno Smith’s stock is up and down. Here is a shot of the green room. Can Mel Kiper talk endlessly about nothing for the next 30 minutes? Matt Barkley’s stock is up and down. Will there be a trade at the No. 2 spot in the draft. Here is another shot of the green room.

You get the drift.

Here’s the different strategies I have employed, accompanied by my review of that strategy.

Watch and sleep and watch and sleep

This was the first strategy and the only strategy available prior to wide spread internet coverage. Just park yourself on the couch, park the TV on ESPN, get settled with snack and blanket and drift in and out of consciousness, because there is simply no way to keep on watching and not sleep, at least intermittently. REVIEW: It’s alright, provided you don’t mind missing picks and provided you aren’t disappointed that the draft you dreamed happened for your team was actually the result of a pizza induced coma.

Check in and check out

You can watch other TV shows, head outside for a walk, or plan of activities that leave small windows for checking into the NFL Draft. That way you will end up sleeping through the night instead of sleeping during the day. And your digestive tract will likely thank you as well, since it won’t be inundated with junk. REVIEW: Sounds like a great strategy, but the ticker can be really annoying if you are trying to catch up on multiple picks. And the analysts are usually of no help since they are probably still taking about the No. 1 pick when the draft is on pick 28.

Page 2 of 2 - DVR and FF>> through the boring parts

Since the draft is a sea of boring with pools of interesting, this can be a good strategy. Get ready to fast forward a lot, but pay close attention not to fast foward through the parts you actually want to see. REVIEW: It’s a great time saving strategy, but with all the fast forwarding stealing the drama out of the event, you can end up feeling as though you are just listening to a list of names. What’s the fun in that?

Find an APP

This might be the best strategy yet. If you can find an app for your smart phone that tells you whose picking, how much time is on the clock and when the pick is in, you can more easily navigate through the draft, especially if you employ a picture-in-picture strategy so that you can bounce between your favorite shows and the televised draft coverage. REVIEW: It’s hard to review this, since I will trying it for the first time this year, but I am guessing that it will be fairly annoying to have to leave the TV show you are watching in favor of a draft selection. Beats staring at the screen for five hours though.

Any others

If anyone has a better strategy, feel free to leave a comment. The advice that I should stop caring about the draft, however, is not especially helpful, even though it might be advisable.